I am amazed that they used a real gun.
The way investigators would find out would seem to be to replicate the circumstances. Maybe some of those on FR who are familiar with firearms capabilities could answer.
I’m more surprised the pistol didn’t explode or have other severe damage in that situation. Blank powder and propellant powder are two different animals...as is periodically discovered by somebody that erroneously uses blank powder to reload live ammunition.
Sigh.
I hit “Post Reply”, but in the time the FR servers have taken to respond, I’ve forgotten what I was going to write.
It was just a horrible accident. It was a collection of bad circumstances all coming together at the same time.
This was so sad. Always shocking. Of course you had the Twilight Zone movie disaster with Vic Morrow and now on the Walking Dead they just lost a stuntman.
Primer only load can in fact lodge a bullet in the barrel. I did it once. Thankfully the RO noticed and put his hand between the hammer and the frame before my next shot.
If you’re lucky, the bullet lodges halfway into the forcing cone and the cylinder won’t rotate again. Did that, too. I was lucky both times.
What a terrible tragedy for a lot of reasons.
Brandon was definitely going to be a superstar. He was an excellent martial artist and a much better actor than his father. His fight scenes are definitely for the aficionado.
A civil suit by Lee's widow was settled quickly. The suit alleged that members of the crew ran out of dummy bullets and improperly manufactured their own from live ammunition instead of waiting a day to buy them from a licensed firearms dealer. The crew was said to lack "proper training, proper equipment and the required federal firearms license" and that it was a violation of industry standards to have live ammunition on a movie set.
Supposedly, during a test firing of the contrived dummy ammunition, a bullet tip wound up in the barrel of the handgun that was later used in the scene resulting in Lee's death. The complaint alleged that from a distance of 20 feet, the tip "was hurled from the barrel of the handgun and struck Brandon Lee in the abdomen with great force and violence, creating an entry wound approximately the size of a silver dollar." The gun was not previously inspected by the property masters responsible for making sure it was safe.
This account, if true, points toward gross negligence in that dummy bullets should not be able to be fired at all. The very idea of test-firing a dummy bullet suggests that the people handling the guns and ammunition were dangerously ignorant and careless.
Additional information would reside in the extensive OSHA investigation file. I do not know if it has been reported on, but a copy should be available under the Freedom of Information Act.
Put a gun loaded with blanks up to your head and fire it and it can kill you.
Why wouldn't the same blanks discharge a bullet stuck in the chamber.
Bigger question: why this all of a sudden?
No gun novice should ever think they know than the gun experts on FR.
Blanks can blow apart a can at barrel touch, they can definitely propel a lodged slug.